Gibson donates ‘shutdown’ salary to Catholic Charities

U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson was at Catholic Charities in Hudson this morning to make holiday care packages for needy families — 58 of them, to be exact.

Yes, yes, that’s the sort of thing a lot of politicians do this time of year, handing out turkeys, Christmas gifts and the like.

But what’s interesting here is that it was Catholic Charities to which Gibson last month donated his roughly $5,400 in salary for the 16 days the federal government was shut down in October when Congress failed to reach an agreement on how to continue funding for many services.

Gibson, a Kinderhook Republican, forsook his pay for the time the government was closed.

The idea that two political parties can’t come together to get a mission done is foreign to me — and unacceptable,” Gibson said.

“It’s an individual choice,” he said of parting with the money. “Each member has to make that choice.”

Interestingly, Gibson says you cannot simply tell the federal government to stop paying your pension, requiring him to — in gloriously bureaucratic fashion — accept the money and then write a check back to the feds each month.

Gibson, who was first elected in 2010, said he chose Catholic Charities because of his family’s long association with the charity. He said his wife, Mary Jo, a licensed clinical social worker, is a regular volunteer there and worked for the for the organization in Queens when he taught at West Point.

Update: According to Tonko’s office, he donated his shutdown pay in three equal parts of $1,550 to the Regional Food Banks of Northeastern New York in Latham, Leatherstocking Honor Flight in Cobleskill and the Northern Rivers Family Services Development Department in Albany.